What's in a name
It is time for the story of Rylie's birth. She is officially 3 months (and 4 days) old, and is spunky and squeaky and adorable and when she offers you a smile or a giggle you cannot help but feel like every single thing is going to be okay. She is laying next to me right now, deciding if she wants to keep her pacifier in her mouth (turns out she's not much of a binky baby, she'd much rather chew on the side of her hand or hold on to the edge of a blanket) and farting up a storm. She doesn't barf on me nearly as much as her brother did, but she makes up for it in farts. Sometimes I am truly surprised that she doesn't just rocket herself right out of her swing, or bed, or whatever she's in when the small eruption happens.
Before I delve into this story let me say, this was my experience as I recall it 3 months later. I feel like it should go without saying, but you just never know with people on the internet anymore, but birthing a child is a pretty intimate process, and it's different for everyone in it's own ways. The overall procedures and stuff may be similar from person to person, but the emotions and feelings and perception of these events will be different for everyone. So.. you know, I am a sarcastic person. If you don't appreciate sarcasm or dry wit, this is probably not the corner of the internet for you. Also... if you are a person planning on or wondering about giving birth, but are scared of c-sections, this is probably not going to be the greatest post for you to read (spoiler alert). But I will say, I mean, obviously I made it through, and me and Rylie and the whole fam damily are all doing just fine.
The night before we went to
the hospital to bring Rylie Autumn into this world, was not all that remarkable
in comparison to the 9 months worth of nights I’d had before it. I’d been
getting progressively less and less sleep, which I always thought was the strangest
thing. You spend all day long during your pregnancy, ESPECIALLY the last few
weeks of pregnancy, being so tired, and then night time comes and you can’t
fall asleep to save your life. At least I never could. A lot of things creep up
on you in those last few weeks. Nerves mostly. No matter how excited you are to
have a baby, no matter how long you waited or how much you can’t wait to have
them in your arms, nerves will creep up on you and you will rehash every single
thing that ever slightly haunted you. I found myself nearly in tears one night
over the memory of a fight I got into with my best friend in 4th
grade. Fucking hormones. The world at large can make fun of the emotional
circus that is a pregnant woman in her third trimester, but that shit is no
joke. And the person that you will annoy the most, 100%, is yourself.
Because it’s not as though you’re just blissfully unaware that you’re acting
like a prepubescent teenager, you are completely aware of the crazy radiating
out of you, but there is just no way to turn it off once it starts. Which is
not all the time, mind you, for me something had to trigger it. Which usually
happened at night when everyone else in the house was sleeping, which I always
got a touch jealous of because it was all I wanted to be doing. Instead I was awake,
overthinking every thing that I’d ever done
in my entire life, watching scary movies, and tearfully wishing that I could
just lay down for a few minutes without being choked by heartburn. ***All my
babies end up being hairy. Doctors will tell you that there is no proven direct
correlation between having horrible heartburn during your pregnancy and having
super hairy babies, but I’m telling you, I’m 3 for 3 now so… take from that
what you will. Which is actually better than thinking too much about actually
giving birth, because nothing will psych you up less then freaking out over
whatever the one thing is that you don’t want to have happen while you’re
having a baby.***
Anyway. So yes. Nothing
entirely unremarkable about the night before. Mike was sleeping on the couch
and I was sitting in the brown chair that had become my bed for the second time
(I practically lived only in that same chair during my pregnancy with Connor
also, it was the only place I could ever get slightly comfortable toward the
end, with both of them). Me and this brown chair have a love hate relationship
because of all the time I spend in it while I’m pregnant, so when I’m not
pregnant anymore I want nothing to do with it. I’ll refuse to sit in it haha,
I’m not really sure why I get so bitter at it, but I do. We were supposed to be
at the hospital at 7 in the morning – I have no clue whose idea that was, but
we were late. Again. (We were late getting there with the boy too). Around 4:30
in the morning I couldn’t stand the idea of sitting anymore, and apparently I
wouldn’t be partaking in sleep either, I figured I’d have plenty of time to
sleep at the hospital after we got all checked in. So, I got up and did my hair
and makeup. That’s right. Don’t judge me. It made me feel better. Mikes mom was
staying at our house with Mackenzie and Connor (this was back in our adorable
naïve days of thinking we’d only be in the hospital till maybe Sunday evening
since I was going in Saturday morning. Oh, how cute we were back then. Spoiler
alert – we weren’t home by Sunday. Or Monday.), Kenzie woke herself up to come
say bye and give us hugs, she hated that she was staying home. I couldn’t get
Connor to wake up and say goodbye to me, but he did give me a sleepy smile and
say “me tooooo” when I said I love you buddy. I’d lied to myself and said that
if I went there in a nightshirt they might let me keep it on instead of
changing to a gown. I don’t know if anybody ever gets away with this, but I
certainly didn’t. I was barely in that room for 10 seconds before the nurse was
barking at me to get changed so we could get things going. So I changed into
their stupid gown and let them put their stupid scratchy belts around my belly
and stood on their stupid scale for my last weigh in and then got in their
stupid bed. I was feeling super optimistic about life at this point. (This is
drenched with sarcasm if you aren’t picking up on that.)
So let me tell you
some things that are crossing my mind at 8ish in the morning on Saturday, the
28th of October 2017:
- · I am fucking freezing. Which is saying a lot because I spent the last 9 months feeling like a human supernova.
- · We still don’t actually have a name for our girl.
- · Please let this go as smooth as Connor did.
Now let me tell you some facts
about this pregnancy and birth situation:
- · My induction this day was exactly one week before her due date. My OB wanted to induce me at 39 weeks instead of waiting till 40 because of my history with Connor. His birth went very smoothly which surprised us all, but he was just huge, and my doctor wanted to try and spare me from going through that a second time.
- · This girl was measuring huge from the word go, just like her brother did. At one point she even bruised one of my ribs, which me and all the staff at Springfield Clinic thought was a freaking myth.
- · My birth plan was to have a regular vaginal delivery just like I did with Connor, and to get the epidural for the same reason I did with the boy “just in case” things went sideways, except this time I was actually planning on using the button.
So, here we are. Checked in.
Suited up. Ready to go. For the longest freaking day ever. I will say that
things went much smoother with my IV this time, at least for pre-birth
purposes. I will say that knowing what to expect this time with the guy that
did my epidural didn’t make it any less terrifying, and I still cried like a
little bitch. They got my IV going around 9am, and I requested the epidural
around 11ish so that I wouldn’t wait too long. Everything was going ok,
contractions started rolling, I was dilated, for all intents and purposes it
seemed like things were moving right along. There is even a message in my phone
at 2:42pm to my friend Jenny saying that it could be anytime now. The next
message to her is at 7:08pm saying I had to go back for a c-section.
So let me tell you what
happened in between full steam ahead goodness and oh my god the sky is falling.
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| That time we were still smiley and spunky because we thought we'd be having a baby, get the a-ok, and be back home by Sunday lunch. |
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| Contractions are A LOT more fun when you get to push the epidural button though. |
Nothing! Nothing happened! I mean stuff happened, but obviously the big event was not coming. The girl did not want to come out. I pushed and pushed, and pushed, and puuuusssshhhhhheeeedddd, and then pushed a few more times. They were giving me bars to hang on to, towels to pull on, rags to bite, handles to grip, and this girl was, I’m pretty sure, just screaming at us to fuck off. We tried this pushing thing for over 2 hours. Now, they had done the ultrasound when we checked in and she was head down and sitting real low and it seemed like she was ready to go. What they didn’t notice on the ultrasound, we would learn in about 20 minutes, was that she may have been head down, but she was face up. This girl had no intentions of being born a week early. So, my doctor is telling us that she can see the top of her head every time I push, but then she just disappears like, goes completely back up. We can’t figure out what’s happening. She breaks the news to me this c-section that I’ve been dreading and have managed to avoid with both of my previous children, is going to have to happen. I’m bleeding, things are a mess, I’m exhausted, and this kid is just not cooperating. And the only coherent thought I could muster up in between just being really damn tired was, well that figures. She’s been a pain in the ass this whole pregnancy, why stop now. Which is not me just being rude, for the record, it was the truth. Every horrible pregnancy ailment that can occur and just sucks that I’d managed to get by without having happen to me with the first two, happened with this girl. And on some level, all along, I sort of knew this was going to be what was going to happen. She truly just didn’t want to cooperate with anything else for the last 9 months… (well… 6 months… because… I missed the first 12 weeks and all lol) so why would she cooperate with my birth plan. Crazy talk.
So they’re wheeling me back to
this little OR to get me prepped for this c-section, and Mike has to wait in
the room for a minute, and I honestly have no idea what he was doing, but I
know I proceeded to have a nervous breakdown. My doc and the anesthesiologist
decided that since I’d already had the epidural and had pushed for so long, it
might just be better to do a complete spinal block. They told me this. They
told me it was “a more complete numbness, that I should feel up to about just
below my chest”. And that was it. End information. They didn’t tell me how much
worse it would hurt, even with a good portion of my lower body still feeling
the epidural a bit. Probably because they didn’t expect me to feel it as much
as I did. I always tell doctors I’m funny about pain meds. They never listen to
me. I’m sure the amount of adrenaline I had pumping through me at that point
probably did wonders to dissolve whatever lingering effects the epidural had
anyway. So they proceed to stab me with railroad spikes, I continue crying like
the big hot mess that I’m feeling like I am, my doctor keeps telling me how
sorry she is that I’m not getting to do this the way I wanted to and that
everything is going to be ok, and then the railroad spikes are done and they
lay me down and in between feeling a little bit like I want to throw up and
pass out, I am not getting any less panicked. And then I realize I can’t move.
Like at all. Again, spinal block = “More complete numbness”. Which apparently translates
to, “you won’t be able to move but you’ll totally know that you can’t move, so
you’ll basically just be paralyzed and numb on this table while we do the one
thing you were terrified we would have to do to you.” Also that whole thing
where they kept tapping my around my ribs are below my chest to make sure I was
numb was all well and good, except that I was numb clear up to my shoulders.
And I was fighting every single second of it, which was making my arms shake
like crazy. And everyone kept telling me to calm down which was only pissing me
off even more and finally I heard a nurse say, “have we gotten dad yet? Maybe
someone should get dad.” And the next thing I remember is Mike’s face being
there and feeling a lot better but still being really pissed off that nobody
explained this spinal block thing to me a little better, being terrified about
what was happening on the other side of the curtain, being slightly amused and
annoyed at how bad my arms were shaking, and wondering why I couldn’t hear baby
noises because I thought c-sections were supposed to happen fast. And then, at
7:28, I heard Dr.Beal say “Well Hi Rylie!” and everything got a little more
okay. Apparently Miss Rylie was staring right up at everyone when they opened
me up, and that is why pushing was never going to work out. And she was fairly
annoyed at whoever turned the lights on and the heat off also. She was 9lbs and
1oz, and she was 21 and ¾ inches long. The doctor said if we’d waited the week
for her to be a full 40 weeks she might very well have beat Connor’s weight
(10lbs 5oz for those that don’t know) because *fun fact*, during the last few
weeks of pregnancy, babies rapidly gain weight (at least ½ to 1lb (maybe even a
little more) per week). The rest of the OR is a bit of a blur. A tech came in
to take my blood, which I can only imagine was challenging as fuck since my
arms were still shaking, and I only got to see Rylie for the short ride back to
my room because my arms were shaking so bad, and the rest of me was still
really numb, and I was still feeling like I might barf everywhere. After we got
back to the room we discovered my IV had started leaking, so they had to pull
it out. They couldn’t give me anything for the nausea, or at least they went
out of their way to not give me anything because every time I asked one of my
nurses they turned into vapor and I didn’t see them again. One of them did
finally take me seriously when, around 9pm, an hour and a half after my kiddo
was born, I finally got to hold her for about a minute and a half and then had
to have Mike come grab her really fast so that I could throw up. Fortunately
there was a little basket bucket thingy on the table next to me, that I think
had a different purpose, but worked out well. I still couldn’t feel my legs. It
would be a while before there was much feeling or movement happening anywhere
in the southern hemisphere of my body. This would present its own set of
problems over the next few days. I won’t get as detailed about the rest of the
time in the hospital, save to say, they told us we wouldn’t be getting to go
home Sunday. Maybe Monday. Then I passed out … twice…. Once while I was trying
to use the bathroom for the first time,and then again when I tried to take a
shower. Using the bathroom proved to be the hardest, which is I think the case for
a lot of women for one reason or another, but I’ve never had such a hard time
in my life peeing as I did in those two days following the birth of the girl.
They were threatening to have to do a straight cath on me if I couldn’t go,
because they wouldn’t let me leave the hospital until I did, and if you don’t
know what a straight cath is… google it and be horrified.
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| Day 1 didn't end quite where it started at, makeup and hair wise. I am all sorts of numb still here, and trying really hard to not barf. **Fun fact** I didn't have the best control of my hands yet and totally dropped the phone on my face right after I got this picture. |
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| There are no pictures of day two. Day two was not a good day. I was far too busy fainting and trying to get my legs to work again. This is day three. AKA, the day I realized I was still wearing my eyeliner from Day 1. |
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| And there's my girl. If you made it this far I figure you deserve a picture or two of the girl. |
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| This was my absolute favorite moment in the hospital. It was my first time getting to really hold my girl and spend some coherent time with her. |
Needless to say, I did finally
use the bathroom, all on my own. I did finally get to shower without passing
out. I did finally get to wear normal clothes again, and most importantly, I
did finally get to spend more than just a couple minutes with my new little
girl, and on Tuesday evening (which happened to be Halloween), we did finally
get to all go home. And for those that were paying attention, we did finally
settle on a name.